I'm sure that many of you remember the song from the early 1970's by
the group Steam called "Kiss Him Goodbye." It is memorable because
of its use of repetitive nonsense syllables in the chorus and has been
used frequently at sporting events as a sassy taunt to the losing team.

I
had never really considered this song in terms of taunting the losing
candidate in an election, but what the heck. Something we have all learned
in the four-weeks-and-then-some since the election on November 7 is that
there is a first time for everything: a first time for a presidential
candidate to willfully try to subvert the rule of law and stage a coup;
a first time for a state supreme court to countermand a secretary of state
and change the rules of an election in the middle of the game; a first
time for the federal supreme court to whack the members of that selfsame
state supreme court about the head and shoulders with their gavels and
say menacingly "You'd better reconsider that ruling, friends."

Another first has been a presidential candidate demanding recount after
recount, filing countless lawsuits, and then appealing every single decision
that has gone against him, which has turned out to be just about all of
them.

The more Al Gore appeals, the more unappealing he gets, even to the jaded
members of his own party. The list of Democrats who are sneaking away
from camp in the dead of night is growing larger and larger. They realize,
even if Al doesn't, that there is, perhaps, a fine line between looking
stalwart and determined and looking like an utter idiot.

Al, we've never loved you
the way that we love Bill
If we did we wouldn't run and hide
Yeah, we know he's Slick Willie
But you, you're just silly
So kiss it (we wanna see you kiss it)
Go on and kiss the presidency goodbye

Na na na na, na na na na
hey he-ey,
goodbye

"He's on his last legs now. We're at the end game,'' said Democratic
National Committee member Ted Kaufman, his metaphors in a gloomy mix.
"I worked for Gore, but Bush will be my president."

Earlier this week, Indiana senator Evan Bayh -- who must be thanking
God in heaven that he wasn't the one chosen off Gore's short list for
running mates -- joined fellow Hoosier politician Representative Julia
Carson in saying that Al's days were numbered. "The Florida Supreme
Court is going to rule, and if he's unsuccessful in that, I think that's
the end of it."

Gore himself continues to be delusionally cheerful, making an effort
to be seen leading a normal, chad-free life at coffee shops, restaurants
and movie theaters near his home. He and Tipper have been double-dating
a lot with Joe and Hadassah Lieberman, which just seems weird, somehow.
One gets the feeling that they're all going to join a Tuesday night bowling
league together, if this doesn't end soon.

"I don't feel anything but optimistic," Gore told reporters
early last week. There was no word on whether he had developed a strange
facial tic yet.

With conflicting rulings handed down from the Martin County/Seminole
County cases and the Florida Supreme Court on Friday afternoon, the election
continued to stretch out before us all in what seems like a never-ending
road strewn with legal briefs, leftover pizza, ballot boxes and lawyers,
lawyers, lawyers. Now that the United States Supreme Court has weighed
in with its split decision to stay the counting of illegal ballots, perhaps
the end is in sight. From wherever he is standing, Al Gore undoubtedly
looks at this mess that his ego and his innate crookedness have created
and feels well pleased.

But underneath all of his pompous posturing and his boring press statements
and his various poses with ice cream cones, double mocha lattes, footballs
and movie ticket stubs there's a tiny refrain being played over and over
again.